Love is Hope: Life after fifth year

***

Harry and Hermione had been talking quite some time, without noticing they missed lunch. It was already 3 in the afternoon. Hermione wasn’t really worried about going back to The Park just yet, since her parents wouldn’t return to the cabins until about 8 in the evening.

Harry had been telling her all about his Occlumency lessons with Dumbledore. Though it was a rare occasion that Harry knew more about a, to Hermione, interesting subject, it was even more rare that Harry had the patience to lecture her about it. Of course he couldn’t fully satisfy her thirst for knowledge, but at least he’d answered a few of her questions.

Naturally she’d tried to search the school library and even the one in Diagon Alley for texts about Occlumency, but because of the tight link with Legilimency they were all in Restricted Sections. Consequently these tomes were either extremely expansive, or forbidden to be sold to the general public, so she hadn’t much luck in bookstores either.

Harry had told her about Dumbledore’s lessons being different from Snape’s in the sense that the old Headmaster had a lot more patience with him, and concentrated more on calming techniques to try and rid his mind from thoughts before attacking. Hermione knew Harry was very aware of the fact that when it mattered, Voldemort or any other powerful wizard who tried to invade his mind, wasn’t going to give him the time to anticipate the attack, but nevertheless she felt relieved Harry started to believe the lessons actually did some good.

She also felt better when she heard the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry was steadily getting better. Though in her heart she knew neither could really dislike the other, she was afraid of how the events of last year would affect the bond between the both of them.

To her embarrassment, her stomach started to rumble. Harry chuckled, stating he was a bit hungry too, but that they shouldn’t count on the Dursley’s. They might feed him enough now, but if he failed to be on time for the meals he wasn’t to ask for snacks in between them. Since Hermione’s pie had been meant to be her lunch, she didn’t have any food on her any more. So they agreed to at least try to get some food at some snack bar. Getting out of the wooden house, they stretched their aching limbs and walked out of the park, smelling the air of grass just rained upon.

They hadn’t even exited the park when they were suddenly surrounded. Several dumb-looking teens with vicious smiles were looking at Harry and Hermione like they were some delicious dish. Before panicking and jumping to the conclusion they had been cornered by the new Death Eater generation, she recognised one of them as Dudley Dursley. Realising it was a Muggle gang, she felt slightly relieved. Dudley was the only one who had to try looking convincing in menacing them, the others were oblivious of Harry’s real power, or hers for that matter.

“Look, Big D, Potter’s found himself a girlfriend!” One of the boys who looked like a merge between Crabbe and Goyle, and sounded eerily like Draco Malfoy, turned his malicious eyes to Hermione, looking her up and down like he was greatly disgusted by the view. “You must not be from around here, or you wouldn’t be caught with *him*, if you knew what’s good for you. Then again, looking like that you probably couldn’t get any better if you tried!”

The insult was met by a round of too loud laughter, even Dudley seemed to forget his fear for Harry momentarily. Hermione, though, was accustomed to people picking on her for her buckteeth (thank God for Madam Pomfrey!), her bushy hair, and holier-then-thou attitude. She almost laughed at the low consideration of being Harry’s girlfriend. It was the opposite really, and it stung her a little for feeling so...

She had grown accustomed to the loud protests of Ron and the silent anger radiating from Harry in the moments people were thick enough of insulting her in their presence. As expected the, in this case reassuring, anger coming of Harry was almost palpable. Harry stayed calm outwardly, though, and leered at his cousin. Hermione knew since some time, that Harry could be one scary bastard if he chose to be, and he was abusing this ability to the maximum this time, whether he was aware of it or not.

“Duddikins, I would advise you keep your lapdog Pee-Pee on a tighter leash, he’s going to make me angry,” only Hermione and Dudley knew what threat lay in Harry’s words, the others just stared at Harry as if he’d grown another head.

‘Pee-Pee’ was red in the face: “It’s Pierce Polkiss, Toiletbrush! I think Big D here went a little soft on you, it’s time we refresh your memory!” slamming his fist menacingly in the palm of his other hand.

The rest of the brain-dead teens looked a bit more eager again, and Dudley seemed braver now that it looked like he wasn’t going to be the only one doing the actual bashing. Hermione’s mind worked overtime to try to find something to say to make them stop. She could always just scream, but she rather kept that as a last resort.

Harry’s face stayed blank, and Hermione was left guessing what went on in him. She knew they hadn’t cornered him since his childhood before Hogwarts, but these had been his bullies and he had always been powerless to stop them. Now he had the power, but he wouldn’t use it, would he? The whole string of complications he’d cause by using his magic against them was frightening to Hermione.

The boys seemed to have forgotten about her momentarily and they were all waiting for something to happen. Suddenly she saw Dudley eye Harry’s wand in his back pocket, while Harry was looking ‘Pee-Pee’ up and down. She saw Dudley ready to launch for the wand.

“Harry! Wand!”

After Hermione’s exclamation several things happened rather fast. Harry’s reaction was rapid drawing his wand and jumping away from Dudley. Dudley lost his balance and would’ve slammed in one of his own minions, hadn’t the boy in question refused to soften his leader’s fall by jumping out of the way. Hermione had backed away from the scene, but was grabbed by Polkiss from behind. Without thinking Hermione applied a series of learned blows ** when grabbed from behind, remember to SING: solar plexus, instep, nose, groin**, resulting in ‘Pee-Pee’ landing on the ground in foetus position.

Seeing their leader and his right-hand on the ground, and their victims scratch-less, the minions took a run for it. Dudley scrambled up, looking murderously, until he saw two wands pointed at him. The look of utter shock was priceless when he realised that Hermione was in fact a witch. In a last attempt he spat at Harry: “I’m telling Mum and Dad!”

Harry didn’t even dignify the threat with a retort, but it was obvious he wasn’t shaking in his boots. Scrambling up and pulling the now recovered but utterly confused Pierce with him, Dudley retreated.

Hermione heaved a sigh of relief while pocketing her wand. She felt the adrenaline-high decreasing and her knees were trembling a bit. Though she’d been in far more dire situations, she felt that this time she’d at least done something useful, and on pure instinct, too.

She saw Harry looking at her with a sort of incredulous look on his face. His voice sounded a little irritated when he asked: “What was that all about?”

Not understanding his irritation, she frowned: ‘All what?’

“Since when do you know how to floor a guy twice your weight and without your wand?”

Was that wounded proud? Harry Potter was embarrassed because little Granger managed to beat a Muggle on pure luck? Before she could respond, she heard a voice behind her: “I taught her that”

To her own disgust Hermione squealed and turned to meet the owner of the voice. A young woman with wild short hair, like Harry’s, only violent orange, stood there beaming at her. “Tonks! What are you doing here?”

“What am *I* doing here? Girl, I should be the one asking *you* that! I thought you were in France, I almost captured you thinking you were a polyjuiced version! Luckily Dumbles gave me this little gadget, works a bit like Moody’s yucky eye and makes me feel like Bond”

Tonks revealed something that looked like an ordinary lens, but before Hermione could ask about it, or ponder on the fact that Tonks had just called the greatest wizard of the century ‘Dumbles’, Harry asked: “What do you mean, you taught her?”

Hermione didn’t understand why this mattered so much all of the sudden, but answered snappishly: “Well, you didn’t think all Tonks, Ginny and me talked about last summer was how many different noses she could morph into, did you?” Seeing Harry’s expression, that was apparently exactly what he thought.

Rolling her eyes, and not bothering to keep the exasperation out of her voice, she continued: “Tonks thought it would be useful to learn Ginny and me some Muggle self-defence. Her father was a Muggle-born wizard, and he believed that she should be able to defend herself without magic, too. So she has been teaching us a bit of it, with the knowledge of Mrs. Weasley may I add. How do you think Ginny got out of the death grip that big Slytherin had her in at Umbridge’s office? Pure luck, or maybe sweet talking?”

Hermione’s sense of indignation for putting labels on people, or creatures for that matter, was flaring. She knew that despite of the wizarding world recognizing wisdom and strength in many brilliant women in their history, the more arrogant part continued treating women as tools to propagate or as nice ornaments to parade around the arm at fancy get-togethers. She had been educated to never let herself be pushed aside as unimportant on the account of being a girl, and the mere suspicion that Harry, *Harry!*, could possibly think Ginny and her, or even Luna for that matter, were inferior to Ron or any boy on the sole fact that they were from the ‘weaker sex’ made her see red and forget reason.

Luckily Tonks intervened: “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, girl, he’s just grumpy ‘cause you got to hit something he has been wanting to hit for ever,” turning to Harry, “You know, I think I’m going to buy you a punch ball, great stress-reliever, know that from personal experience... Anyway,” turning back to Hermione, “I’m guessing I won’t get the answer on what you’re doing here any time soon, and I have a job to do, this area isn’t going to patrol itself, now will it? So don’t let lil’ ol’ me interrupt the lovers’ quarrel! See y’all later!”

With that she put on what seemed to be an Invisibility Cloak and disappeared from view. It was starting to get on Hermione’s nerves, people always assuming Harry and her were an item. What could possibly make them think so? She turned to Harry to see he looked a bit apologetic, and didn’t want to analyse the little fight they just had.

“We were going to find some food?” Harry nodded and led the way out of the street. Hermione following.

***

Hermione arrived at The Park just in time to take a long shower, before the group arrived from the hike. Her parents were none the wiser of where she’d really gone that day, and she planned on keeping it that way.

After much insistence Hermione had gotten Harry to eat something she bought with her Muggle money. They’d talked some more about what they would be studying next year, when they’d receive their forms to fill in, and what would be most likely in the curriculum of different courses. That time Hermione had done most of the talking, without Harry’s listening being interrupted by Ron.

Hermione had pulled out from her backpack something she had been unsure of giving to him. She had noticed over the years that courses that really held Harry’s interest, like Defence Against Dark Arts, were the ones he did best in. So this idea formed in her head that if she was able to make him pay attention to some of the useful information, which he would be more eager to learn.

Over the years she’d been taking notes from so many texts, all information that seemed useful to her. She had a separate stack of defence spells and potions, things from handy charms to specific transfiguration spells, and of course curses and their counter-curses, as well as some interesting potions.

She hoped that despite of his aversion to the professor teaching potions, that she would be able to catch his attention with the potions in her notes, and that he would find it useful to take the course regardless of other reservations. Though she didn’t particularly felt like handing her precious notes over, she reminded herself that it were only copies of the original ones and hoped for the best when she handed them to Harry.

Harry seemed more indulgent in accepting them then really ecstatic of receiving the result of her hard work. But she wouldn’t let herself doubt too much, resisting the urge to really start pestering him to take Potions.

He’d mentioned, almost in passing, that he’d talked a bit with Remus at Mrs. Figgs’ house. It had to do with Sirius’ will, but he didn’t linger on it, and she didn’t ask more. Guiltily she realized she hadn’t thought much of what it must be for Remus, gaining and loosing his last best friend in such short time.

All Remus had really was Harry, and vice versa. But knowing both of them, it would take quite a bit of time and healing for those two to become closer than they were now, both feeling they would damage Sirius’ memory in doing so, or at least using it as an excuse as not to get too close, to avoid feeling the pain if one of them wouldn’t make it.

They’d said goodbye on a good note; the only mention of their, in retrospect rather strange, previous behaviour towards each other was made by an apology for the slap she gave Harry. He’d only replied, in a to Hermione poor attempt at humour, that at least now he had something in common with Malfoy.

It was with a whole new set of worries that she fell asleep that night, though old ones appeased a bit. She fell asleep quickly, being exhausted from the bike trip and excitement of that day’s events.

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I feel an additional disclaimer is in order for this chapter: the SING idea... I got it from the movie Miss Congeniality

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